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Tenth  Series,  No.  10  March  I,  1919 


Ceacj)er0  College  JBulletin 


The  Psychology  of  Drawing 

Imagination  and  Expression 

Culture  and  Industry  in  Education 


A  REPRINT  OF  THREE  ARTICLES  BY 

John  Dewey 

PROFESSOR  OF  PHILOSOPHY,  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY 


Published  b 

College,  Columbia 

525  West   izoth  Street 
New  York  City 


ft 


INTRODUCTION 

The  three  articles  included  in  this  pamphlet  were  written  ;-. 
number  of  years  ago  by  Professor  Dewey  and  have  long  been  ou 
of  print.  Because  of  the  relation  of  these  articles  to  moderr 
educational  theory  and  practice  Professor  Dewey  has,  at  the 
request  of  Professor  Patty  S.  Hill,  of  Teachers  College,  kindly 
consented  to  this  reprint. 


EDUCATION 


Stackers  College  "Bulletin 

Published  fortnightly  from  September  to  May  inclusive.  Entered  as 
second-class  matter  January  15,  1910,  at  the  Post  Office,  New  York,  N.Y., 
under  Act  of  August  24,  1912. 

Acceptance  for  mailing  at  special  rate  of  postage  provided  for  in  Sec- 
tion 1103,  Act  of  October  3,  1917,  authorized. 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DRAWING 

Drawing  should  be  at  first  a  means  for  reinforcing  or  dwell- 
ing upon  some  interesting  life  experience  of  the  child.  The  start 
must  be  imaginative,  not  simply  ought  to  be.  Even  in  drawing 
objects  the  child  will  draw  from  his  image,  not  from  the  object 
itself ;  there  is  no  road  from  the  object  to  the  child's  motor  object. 
The  use  of  the  object  is  therefore  simply  to  help  the  construction 
of  the  image. 

But  the  child  is  interested  in  objects  only  from  the  stand- 
point of  the  part  they  play  in  his  life,  their  use,  their  function, 
their  purpose  or  service.  Hence  there  is  crudity,  lack  of  propor- 
tion, lack  of  qualities  or  structure  and  form;  hence  symbolism 
serves  as  a  sign,  not  as  a  conveyance.  It  serves  to  stimulate,  to 
vivify;  its  main  value  is  reactive,  freeing  the  child  and  giving  him 
help  upon  his  own  imagery.  It  must  at  first  be  judged  from  this 
standpoint,  its  liberating  power. 

But  the  reaction  ought  to  go  to  the  point  of  forming  a  new 
mode  of  vision  on  the  part  of  the  child,  and  allowing  this  new 
mode  of  experience  to  control  his  motor  expression;  otherwise 
after  a  certain  point  is  passed  slovenly  habits  both  of  seeing  and 
of  moving  are  acquired. 

What  this  point  is  differs  in  different  children  and  it  is  a 
matter  of  tact  to  deal  with  it.  Once  the  child's  imagery  is 
loosened,  then  does  his  expression  become  easy,  become  a  delight, 
become  varied. 

The  ship,  the  house,  the  tree  are  mechanical  and  formal,  and 
must  be  clothed  in  human  form  to  excite  interest ;  but  as  soon  as 
the  child  has  acquired  the  habit  of  vivifying  and  liberating  his 
image  through  expression,  then  a  return  may  take  place  to  the 
original  form. 

In  one  sense  there  is  no  technique  up  to  this  time,  but  there 
is  the  physical  factor  corresponding  to  technique — the  motor  ex- 
pression, its  coordination  with,  control  by,  and  stimulation  of 
the  visual-  image.  This  becomes  through  training  what  is  ordi- 
narily called  technique. 


609072 


4  THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DRAWING 

The  first  consideration  is  the  doing,  the  use :  after  use  comes 
method,  the  how  of  doing.  Now  method  must  exist  not  for  its 
own  sake  but  for  better  self-expression,  fuller  and  more  interest- 
ing doing. 

Hence  these  two  points;  technique  must  grow  out  of  free 
imaginative  expression,  it  must  grow  up  within  and  come  into 
such  imaginative  expression.  Here  I  speak  as  a  psychologist,  not 
as  an  artist. 

There  are  no  separate  objects  for  a  child,  they  have  their 
meaning  in  their  relations  to  the  whole  picture,  the  whole  expres- 
sion, and  are  controlled  by  it.  Although  this  is  the  source  of 
crudity,  it  is  also  the  source  of  possible  maturity  or  ripeness. 

The  object  is  meant  to  fulfill  a  function,  to  stimulate  to  look 
again;  an  image  is  formed,  then  the  movement  is  controlled  by 
that  new  vision.  Thus  technique  arises  normally.  When  the 
image  produced  is  used  as  a  basis  to  center  the  habit  of  seeing, 
then  the  new  mode  of  vision  is  used  to  centralize  the  old  motor 
product  and  to  build  up  a  new  one. 

Take,  for  example,  certain  children's  drawings  in  their  falsity 
of  line;  this  shows  an  unreal  analysis  beginning  with  the 
technique ;  when  the  technique  is  mechanical  there  is  jio  meaning, 
no  idea  to  it,  and  there  results  this  psychological  evil  that  the 
imagery  is  as  uncontrolled  as  before;  no  new  mode  of  seeing  is 
acquired.  It  is  so  completely  an  abstract  that  it  ceases  to  be  an 
element  of  the  original  object,  and  not  a  universal  one  at  that. 
Here  the  principle  of  control  is  wholly  external  and  not  at  all 
within  the  child's  experience. 

Type  forms  are  an  advance,  for  they  help  the  child  to  make 
a  transition  from  the  natural  habit  of  seeing;  but  they  are  type 
forms  only  to  the  adult :  in  calling  them  types  arises  a  misunder- 
standing of  the  child's  realization.  There  is  more  involved  than 
finding  them  in  nature.  The  child  must  feel  the  need  of  them  in 
order  to  govern  and  control  his  own  activity.  It  is  a  turning  back 
in  order  to  get  a  fuller  and  more  vital  expression,  and  there  are 
various  means  for  this  accomplishment. 

Incidental  criticism  of  technique  and  form  may  begin  very 
early,  as  in  stories,  in  history,  geography  and  literature.  In 
nature  study  there  is  more  demand  for  accuracy,  also  in  archi- 


THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  DRAWING  5 

tectural  drawing,  while  decorative  forms  impart  ideas  of  sym- 
metry and  an  interest  in  formal  reproduction. 

Type  forms  may  be  used  here;  they  should,  however,  be 
studied  in  connection  with  nature  study,  flowers,  leaves,  animals, 
etc.  Advantage  should  be  taken  of  the  child's  love  of  symbolism 
and  his  imaginative  interest. 

In  work  like  manual  training  and  sloyd,  failure  in  technique 
manifests  itself  at  once  as  mistakes  of  product,  proportion  and 
structure. 

The  imitation  of  landscape  has  a  strong  interest,  and  here  an 
analysis  should  be  made  for  the  child,  not  by  the  child ;  for  later 
in  his  experience  further  opportunity  for  this  will  arise  in  the 
reproduction  of  greater  landscape,  by  which  special  attention  to 
light  and  shade,  form  and  line,  can  be  secured, 

Every  great  work  of  art  represents  the  analysis  and  synthesis 
of  a  great  mind. 

In  the  above  suggestions  I  have  attempted  to  point  out  the 
psychology  involved  in  principles  already  adopted  because  of  their 
practical  utility.  One  point,  however,  that  I  wish  to  make  is  the 
arrangement,  utilization  and  organization  of  these  means.  We 
have  here,  as  with  many  other  things,  no  common  end ;  the  ends 
are  considered  as  different,  instead  of  as  a  division  of  interest  for 
one  common  end,  viz.,  Education.  The  story,  history,  geography, 
nature-study  are  but  means  by  which  the  child  masters  ideas  and 
reaches  after  ideals. 

To  subordinate  the  child  to  type  forms,  to  things,  to  the 
Parthenon,  to  the  practice  of  decorative  designs  or  even  to  manual 
training,  is  materialism. 

These  things,  like  the  Sabbath,  are  made  for  man,  for  the 
child,  not  the  child  for  them.  They  must  be  simply  his  to  help 
him  to  the  best  utterance  of  himself,  to  sincerity,  genuineness, 
unconsciousness  and  power.  Imagination  is  expression ;  technique 
is  that  phase  of  expression  which  helps  to  realize  more  perfectly 
the  vision,  the  inner  image,  and  by  so  doing  to  build  up  and  to 
define  the  finer  and  more  subtle  forms  of  expression. 


IMAGINATION  AND  EXPRESSION* 

Every  mode  of  expression,  no  matter  how  mechanical,  no 
matter  how  fantastic,  no  matter  how  impressionistic,  has  these  two 
sides — idea  and  technique. 

The  architect's  drawing  of  the  plan  of  a  house,  the  engineer's 
working  plan  for  the  construction  of  a  machine,  have  an  idea  to 
be  expressed,  or  else  any  series  of  lines  drawn  with  a  ruler  would 
serve  as  well.  And  the  crudest  attempt  of  a  child  to  illustrate 
"Hickery,  Dickery,  Dock"  has  also  its  technique,  its  mode  of  reali- 
zation. It  is  also  clear  that  in  its  process  of  expression  the  pri- 
mary function  belongs  to  the  idea,  the  secondary  to  the  technique ; 
they  are  related  as  content  and  form,  as  material  to  be  conveyed 
or  delivered,  and  as  mode  of  conveyance,  as  what  and  as  how. 

But  lest  this  statement  be  misinterpreted,  as  it  often  is,  let  me 
add  that  to  say  one  is  primary  and  the  other  secondary,  one  is  the 
end  and  the  other  the  means,  does  not  mean  that  attention  is  to  be 
concentrated  upon  the  one  and  the  other  is  to  be  neglected.  If 
one  is  thoroughly  interested  in  the  idea  as  something  to  be  ex- 
pressed he  must  also  be  interested  in  the  mode  of  expression.  A 
lack  of  interest  in  the  form  or  process  always  marks  something 
crude,  hazy,  or  unreal  in  the  grasp  of  the  idea  or  content.  We 
must  be  interested  in  the  expression  just  in  proportion  to  the  in- 
tensity, the  controlling  character  of  our  interest  in  the  idea.  But 
on  the  other  hand  this  interest  in  the  idea,  in  the  story  to  be  told, 
the  thought  to  be  realized,  is  the  true  basis  for  an  artistic  interest 
in  the  technique.  A  mode  of  expression  separated  from  some- 
thing to  express  is  empty  and  artificial,  is  barren  and  benumbing. 

It  is  comparatively  simple  to  abstract  the  technique,  to  make 
the  command  of  certain  physical  and  mental  tools  the  end  and 
aim ;  it  is  comparatively  easy  to  start  from  the  image,  the  story, 
and  allow  that  to  find  its  own  unaided  outlet,  and  under  the  claim 
of  the  superiority  of  the  idea  to  the  technique  to  allow  simply  a 
crude  and  unformed  result  to  pass  as  a  matter  of  no  importance 

*Report  of  address  given  before  the  Western  Drawing  Teachers'  As- 
sociation in  1896,  revised  by  Dr.  Dewey  for  insertion  in  the  Chicago  public 
school  study  course. 


IMAGINATION   AND  EXPRESSION  7 

in  itself ;  but  to  do  so  is  to  encourage  crude  and  slovenly  habits  of 
expression  to  grow  up,  which  becomes  an  exceedingly  important 
matter. 

The  via  media  is  a  difficult  path  to  find ;  the  straight  and 
narrow  way  which  makes  for  artistic  righteousness  goes  in  neither 
of  these  directions ;  but  attempts  on  the  one  hand  to  make  the  in- 
terest in  the  idea  the  vital  image,  to  extend  itself  to  the  mode  of 
conveyance,  and  thus  to  make  the  entire  interest  in  technique  a 
functional  and  not  an  isolated  one,  while  on  the  other  hand  it  rec- 
ognizes the  necessity  of  having  the  mode  of  expression  react  back 
into  the  idea,  to  make  it  less  cloudy,  more  definite,  less  haphazard, 
more  accurate,  less  the  product  of  momentary  undeveloped  in- 
terest and  thought,  and  more  the  outcome  of  natural  reflection  and 
comprehensive  interest. 

So  much  for  the  practical  problem.  Now  for  its  psychologi- 
cal equivalent.  What  corresponds  to  idea,  what  corresponds  to 
technique  in  the  natural  psychical  process ;  how  are  these  related 
to  each  other;  how  do  they  interest  in  a  mutually  helpful  way? 
We  cannot  accept  one  apparently  simple  way  of  answering  this 
question.  We  cannot  say  that  the  idea  is  imaginative,  is  spiritual, 
while  what  corresponds  to  the  technique  is  physical  and  mechani- 
cal. The  simplicity  of  such  an  answer  is  at  the  cost  of  reality. 
The  mental  occurrence  which  represents  the  form  or  mode  of  ex- 
pression is  just  as  much  an  image  as  is  the.  idea  itself.  It  is  not 
the  problem  of  the  relation  of  a  spiritual  image  to  a  physical  organ 
of  expression,  but  of  one  sort  of  imagery  to  another.  While  this 
perhaps  is  an  unusual  putting  of  the  matter  we  must  recognize 
that  after  all  it  is  because  the  whole  process  is  one  of  imagery 
that  the  problem  is  a  soluble  one  in  an  educative  sense. 

If  on  one  side  the  idea  were  alone  a  matter  of  the  imagina- 
tion, and  the  technique  were  simply  a  matter  of  delicate  and  physi- 
cal control  of  the  eye  and  the  muscle,  we  could  get  a  genuine 
harmonizing  of  the  two  factors  in  the  problem.  We  should  be 
compelled  simply  to  alternate  from  one  side  to  the  other,  or  to 
make  the  best  compromise  we  could. 

In  saying  that  the  side  of  technique  is  itself  a  matter  of  imag- 
ery I  refer  to  what  the  psychologists  term  motor  imagery,  and  to 
the  well-known  fact  that  imagery  of  all  kinds  has  a  tendency  to 


8  IMAGINATION  AND  EXPRESSION 

overflow  in  the  motor  channels,  and  that  thus  there  is  a  continual 
tendency  to  reproduce  through  action  and  experience,  or  to  put 
forth  in  expression  whatever  has  been  gained  in  impression  and 
then  to  assimilate  it  into  an  idea.  I  refer,  moreover,  to  the  fact 
that  a  great  deal  of  motor  expression  is  not  something  done  with 
an  idea  already  made  in  the  child's  mind,  but  it  is  necessary  to  the 
appreciation  of  the  idea  itself.  If  there  is  one  principle  more 
than  another  upon  which  all  educational  practice  (not  simply 
education  in  art)  must  base  itself,  it  is  precisely  in  this:  that  the 
realization  of  an  idea  in  action  through  the  medium  of  move- 
ment is  as  necessary  to  the  formation  of  the  mental  image  as  is 
the  expression,  the  technique,  to  the  full  play  of  the  idea  itself. 

We  cannot  speak  of  an  idea  and  its  expression.  The  ex- 
pression is  .more  than  a  mode  of  conveying  an  already  formed 
idea,  it  is  a  part  and  a  half  of  its  formation.  The  so-called 
mechanical  action  in  the  world  is  necessary  to  the  production  and 
formation  of  the  spiritual.  To  realize  this  is  the  first  part  in  the 
psychology  of  expression. 

Here  we  have  a  natural  physical  origin  for  drawing  as  well 
as  for  all  other  forms  of  expression.  There  is  a  natural  tendency 
for  every  image  to  pass  into  movement ;  an  inert  image,  an  image 
which  does  not  tend  to  manifest  itself  through  the  medium  of 
action,  is  a  non-existence. 

In  later  life  we  have  learned  to  suppress  so  many  sugges- 
tions to  action,  and  have  learned  to  delay  the  expression  of  so 
many  others,  that  this  fundamental  law  has  become  somewhat 
obscured;  but  a  study  of  child  life  and  growth  reveals  it  in  its 
purity  and  intensity,  and  reveals  also  that  the  suppression  of  mani- 
festation of  an  image,  or  delay  in  its  passage  into  action,  is  an 
acquired  habit,  a  later  acquisition.  In  the  early  period,  the  ten- 
dency of  every  image  to  secure  realization  for  itself  through  the 
medium  of  action  is  witnessed  in  play  and  in  the  incessantly  urgent 
desire  of  the  child  for  conversation;  his  impulse  to  tell  every- 
thing, to  communicate.  The  fundamental  meaning  of  the  play  is 
the  proof  it  furnishes  that  mere  absorption,  or  accumulation,  or 
impression,  does  not  suffice ;  and  it  is  never  a  complete  or  self-suf- 
ficing mental  condition,  but  must  always  be  fulfilled  in  ex- 
pression by  translation  into  activity.  It  requires  very  little  ob- 


IMAGINATION  AND  EXPRESSION  9 

servation  for  a  child  to  reach  the  conclusion  that  he  does  not  get 
hold  of  any  impression  or  any  idea  until  he  has  done  it;  the  im- 
pression is  alien,  is  felt  as  inadequate,  as  unsatisfactory,  until  the 
child  makes  it  his  own  by  turning  it  over  into  terms  of  his  own 
activities.  He  gains  his  ideas  and  makes  them  truly  his  own,  a 
part  of  himself,  by  reproducing  them,  and  this  reproduction  is 
literal  and  not  metaphorical.  He  acts  it  out  before  he  really  takes 
it  in.  In  infancy  this  manifests  itself  in  the  continual  handling, 
pulling,  punching  and  throwing  of  all  objects  with  which  he  comes 
in  contact. 

How  are  we  to  account  for  this  instinct  of  imitation  except 
on  the  basis  that  it  is  not  enough  to  see  or  hear  as  an  observer, 
and  that  the  child  gets  hold  of  what  he  sees  and  hears  as  he  him- 
self reproduces,  which  from  his  standpoint  is  creation. 

In  all  these  earlier  reproductive  activities  it  is  clear  that  there 
are  not  two  sides  to  the  child,  an  image  and  its  expression ;  the 
image  is  only  in  its  expression,  the  expression  is  only  the  image 
moving,  vitalizing  itself. 

Drawing  as  a  motor  development  has,  however,  one  distinct 
mark ;  it  marks  a  growing  inhibition  or  control  on  the  part  of  the 
child.  The  whole  image  at  first  moves  the  whole  organism  by  the 
principles  of  irradiation  or  expansion.  Drawing  marks  the  limi- 
tation to  certain  channels ;  moreover,  it  is  directed  more  imme- 
diately by  the  image  in  terms  of  the  eye,  not  by  the  whole;  it 
makes,  therefore,  relatively  an  analysis. 

However,  even  here  we  must  recognize  the  principle  of  broad 
outlines  ;  the  whole  must  be  imaged  and  not  the  mere  detail. 


CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION* 

There  may  have  been  a  time  when  the  problem  of  the  relation 
of  industry  and  education  had  to  be  read  in  this  way :  What  shall 
the  school  do  for  industry  ?  But  now  the  question  has  to  be  read 
the  other  way  about :  What  is  industry  to  do  for  the  school  ?  or 
rather  What  is  it  to  do  with  the  school  ?  Business  is  the  dominat- 
ing force  in  modern  life.  It  underlies  and  shapes  the  activities 
and  enjoyments,  the  possibilities  and  the  achievements,  of  even 
those  who  have  least  to  do  with  it — who  perhaps  pride  themselves 
on  having  nothing  to  do  with  it. 

In  politics,  recent  revelations  have  brought  it  to  the  minds  of 
the  American  people  that  our  public  life  is  in  the  dominion  of 
business  methods  and  aims.  The  political  amateur  may  have 
whiled  away  his  time  with  discussing  what  the  government  should 
or  should  not  do  for  business  and  commerce.  The  average  voter 
imagined  himself  voting  in  accordance  with  principles  which  regu- 
lated the  activities  of  political  parties.  But  to-day  the  average 
man  has  a  suspicion  that  political  parties,  their  leaders  and  plat- 
forms, are  agencies  administered  by  commercial  forces.  The 
serious  question  is  not  what  politics  is  to  do  for  business,  but  what 
business  is  to  do  with  our  politics. 

In  like  way,  the  academician  within  the  walls  of  his  own 
study,  dreaming  that  he  is  a  spiritual  leader  of  the  forces  of 
which  he  is  in  fact  a  tamed  parasite,  may  conceive  modern  busi- 
ness and  education  as  two  independent  institutions ;  and  may  con- 
sider whether  the  ties  between  them  should  be  loosened  here  or 
tightened  there.  Meantime  unconsciously  if  not  consciously,  by 
force  of  conditions  if  not  by  intention,  the  ideals  and  methods 
that  control  business  take  possession  of  the  spirit  and  machinery 
of  our  educational  system. 

If  there  is  to  be  any  result  save  blind  conformity,  passive  re- 
production, it  must  proceed  from  facing  the  overlordship  of  in- 
dustry in  modern  life,  with  all  that  it  imports.  The  question  as 
respects  education  is  how  the  school  is  to  secure  the  good  and 

*From    Proceedings    of    the    Joint   Convention   of   the    Eastern    Art 
Teachers'  Association  and  the  Eastern  Manual  Training  Association,  1906. 


CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION  II 

avoid  the  ill. of  this  sovereignty;  how  it  may  select  and  perpetuate 
what  in  it  is  significant  and  worthy  for  human  life  and  may  re- 
ject and  expel  what  is  degrading  and  enslaving. 

This  problem  is  the  more  urgent  because  the  notions  of  both 
education  and  industry  which  exist  in  the  minds  of  the  cultivated 
classes  of  the  community,  the  ideas  that  are  the  signboards  of  the 
traditional  path  of  culture  in  Europe  and  America,  are  survivals 
of  a  belief  in  the  separation,  even  opposition,  of  education  and 
industry.  Pardon  me  if  I  take  you  to  the  fountain  head  of  these 
ideas — to  Aristotle,  who  formulated  them.  He,  speaking  not  for 
himself,  but  for  the  marvelous  life  of  Greece,  saw  life  divided 
into  two  parts,  one  the  superior,  the  intrinsically  valuable  realm — 
that  of  ends,  good  in  themselves ;  the  other,  secondary,  necessary, 
yet  base  because  intrinsically  not- valuable ;  the  region  of  means. 
The  aim  of  human  life  is  cultivated  leisure  in  the  possession  of 
final  goods;  to  exercise  reason,  to  enjoy  knowledge,  to  share  in 
the  results  of  the  arts,  to  take  some  part  in  the  formation  of  the 
ideas  that  regulate  public  life,  to  engage,  that  is,  in  the  communi- 
cation, the  exchange  of  thought. 

But  such  a  life  must  be  underpinned  and  buttressed  with  the 
needful  means.  It  exists  only  when  based  upon  command  of  the 
necessities  of  life:  food,  clothing,  shelter,  in  short,  enough  of 
economic  wealth  to  safeguard  and  to  adorn  life.  The  life  of  cul- 
tured leisure  which  alone  is  worthy  in  itself,  the  life  of  the  spirit, 
requires  the  substructure  of  the  economic,  the  material  life. 
Work  exists  for  the  sake  of  leisure,  industry  for  the  sake  of  cul- 
ture, as  war  exists  for  the  sake  of  peace,  but  one  and  the  same 
person  cannot  have  both.  Work  is  needful  for  the  existence  of 
the  higher  life,  the  aim  of  education,  and  yet  it  is  incompatible 
with  it. 

Separation  of  classes  was  the  source  and  the  outcome  of  this 
scheme.  Artisans,  craftsmen,  mechanics,  handworkers  of  all 
sorts,  since  engaged  in  activities  having  their  worth  beyond  them- 
selves, are  menial,  servile.  Their  occupations  disfigure  and  de- 
grade the  body  as  they  distort  and  harden  the  soul.  They  fill  the 
mind  with  utilitarian  and  mercenary  interests.  They  make  such 
demands  on  time  and  energy  as  to  leave  no  leisure  for  culture  and 
participation  in  the  public  life  of  ideas.  It  is  impossible,  so  Aris- 


12  CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION 

totle  sums  up  the  matter,  to  live  the  life  of  a  laborer  and  devote 
one's  self  to  the  pursuit  and  exercise  of  excellence.  No  one  un- 
less base  in  soul  or  compelled  by  hard  necessity  will  consent  to 
such  a  life. 

A  true  education  is  a  liberal  education :  that  is,  an  education 
designed  to  prepare  one  to  share  in  the  free  life  of  leisure;  de- 
signed to  form  the  habits  that  have  to  do  with  the  practice  of 
things  excellent  in  themselves.  Its  aim  is  not  preparation  for  liv- 
ing, but  for  noble  living,  enjoying,  without  engaging  in  industrial 
production,  science,  art  and  the  direction  of  public  affairs.  Such 
an  education  keeps  itself  as  far  as  may  be  from  everything  in- 
dustrial, utilitarian,  professional.  The  functions  of  an  artisan  are 
not  such,  says  Aristotle,  as  should  be  learned  by  any  good  man, 
except  occasionally  for  the  satisfaction  of  his  own  wants.  To 
labor  for  others  is  slavish.  Nor  was  a  distinction  put  between  the 
artist  and  the  artisan.  Pupils  are  to  be  educated  in  the  perform- 
ance of  the  arts  only  so  far  as  is  necessary  to  secure  to  them  abil- 
ity to  appreciate  the  results  of  the  performance  of  others.  Any- 
thing else  is  professional,  that  is,  servile.  The  fact  that  stands 
out  here,  a  fact  as  obvious  as  a  pyramid  on  a  plain,  is  that  the 
separation  in  education  between  culture  and  labor,  between  a 
liberal  and  a  professional  training,  is  the  reflex  of  a  more  funda- 
mental social  difference  between  a  working  class  and  a  leisure 
class.1  Educational  division  lines  grew  out  of  social  stratifica- 
tions just  as  they  perpetuate  them.  It  is  not  that  Aristotle  created 
these  distinctions.  But  he  honestly  looked  the  social  facts  of  his 
times  in  the  face,  and  translated  what  he  saw  into  their  intellectual 
equivalents.  This  report  was  the  differentiation  of  workers  and 
thinkers,  the  busy  and  the  leisured,  those  occupied  with  material 
and  with  ideal  things,  and  the  corresponding  division  of  education 
into  that  which  is  for  use  and  that  which  is  for  culture. 

So  far  as  the  social  differentiation  still  persists,  so  far  it  still 
fixes  the  fundamental  cleavage  in  educational  theory  and  practice. 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  the  social  separation  continues.  In  many 
respects  the  objectionable  qualities  which  led  Aristotle  to  condemn 

1This  did  hot  mean  necessarily  a  separation  between  the  rich  and  the 
poor.  In  fact,  Aristotle  speaks  of  the  industrial  class  as  likely  to  be  rich. 
The  fact  that  they  continue  in  business  in  spite  of  being  well-to-do  is  only 
another  proof  of  the  debased  character  of  their  minds. 


CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION  13 

the  life  -of  labor  and  commerce  have  increased.  Physical  con- 
straint with  its  evil  mental  and  bodily  results,  division  of  labor, 
with  accompanying  lack  of  initiative  and  lack  of  knowledge  of  the 
basis  and  aim  of  the  activity  in  which  one  is  engaged,  the  fierce- 
ness of  competition  and  desire  to  exploit  others,  the  importance 
attached  to  sheer  money  possession — these  things  have  increased, 
not  decreased  since  Aristotle's  time. 

For  some  years,  I  preserved  a  little  piece  of  cast  iron  taken 
from  a  typical  American  factory,  one  of  our  large  agricultural 
machinery  works.  I  preserved  it  as  a  sort  of  Exhibit  A  of  our 
social  and  educational  status.  The  iron  came  out  of  the  casting 
with  a  little  roughness  upon  it  which  had  to  be  smoothed  off  be- 
fore it  could  become  a  part  of  the  belt  for  which  it  was  designed. 
A  boy  of  fifteen  or  sixteen  spent  his  working  day  in  grinding  off 
this  slight  roughness — grinding  at  the  rate  of  over  one  a  minute 
for  every  minute  of  his  day.  When  we  consider  the  stupefying 
monotony  of  such  activity,  its,  total  lack  of  intellectual  and  im- 
aginative content,  its  absolutely  routine  character,  one  can  con- 
ceive how  far  the  present  day  is  justified  in  throwing  stones  at 
Aristotle  for  his  frank  description  and  appreciation  of  the  indus- 
trial situation. 

Practically,  we  have  established  a  universal  system  of  school- 
ing at  the  public  expense.  In  theory  this  extends  from  kinder- 
garten to  or  even  through  college.  But  we  know  that  many  boys 
and  girls  leave  at  the  end  of  their  fourth  or  fifth  grade.  And 
why?  To  go  to  work,  and  in  the  cities,  for  the  most  part, 
to  go  to  work  at  relatively  unskilled  forms  of  labor.  We 
know  that  our  present  scheme  of  industry  requires  a  large  supply 
of  cheap,  unskilled  labor  at  hand.  We  know  that  this  precludes 
special  training;  that  the  education  which  should  develop  initia- 
tive, thoughtfulness  and  executive  force  would  not  turn  out  the 
facile  recruits  for  our  present  system.  And,  if  we  are  honest,  we 
know  that  it  is  not  intended  that  these  qualities  shall  be  secured 
more  than  is  required  to  take  charge  of  running  the  machinery  to 
which  the  masses  are  subordinate. 

In  short,  we  are  engaged  in  training  a  comparatively  small 
number  for  an  academic  life  of  leisure  and  culture;  we  are  en- 
gaged in  failing  to  train  the  great  number  so  that  anything  but  a 


14  CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION 

life  of  somewhat  passive  and  dulled  participation  in  unidealized 
labor  shall  be  possible  to  them ;  we  are  permitting  a  few  to  train 
themselves  so  as  to  control  the  labor  of  these  masses  to  their  own 
ends.  It  is  this  which  makes  me  say  that  the  question  is  not 
so  much  what  the  schools  are  to  do  for  industry,  as  what  our 
industrial  system  is  to  do  with  the  schools. 

There  are,  after  all,  fundamental  differences  of  a  more  favor- 
able sort  between  the  Greek  situation  and  ours.  In  the  first  place, 
the  ideal  of  an  interdependent  life  has  taken  the  place  of  that  of 
an  independent  life.  The  world  market,  world  commerce,  the 
system  of  production  for  wide  distribution  with  its  vast  mechan- 
ism of  exchange,  have  bound  us  closely  together  in  one  whole. 
The  idea  of  a  self-contained,  self -sufficient  life  in  economic  isola- 
tion has  become  impossible.  As  Carlyle  grimly  remarked  when  a 
contagious  disease  starting  in  slum  sweatshops  had  found  its  way 
to  the  homes  of  the  well-to-do  to  whom  the  poor  laborers  pur- 
veyed, industry  has  made  all  the  world  one,  if  not  for  good,  then 
for  evil. 

In  the  second  place,  ancient  industry  rested  on  routine  and 
custom,  as  ancient  commerce,  carried  on  almost  solely  in  objects 
of  luxury,  rested  on  adventure  and  semi-piracy.  Modern  in- 
dustry and  modern  distribution  rest  on  science — on  the  applica- 
tion of  ideas  to  the  management  of  nature's  energies.  The  in- 
dividual workman  may  have  but  little  cognizance  of  this  intellec- 
tual foundation  and  outlook,  but  it  is  there  and  controls  the  whole 
process. 

In  the  third  place,  the  laboring  classes  are  no  longer  excluded 
from  participation  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  In  prin- 
ciple, and  increasingly  in  fact,  the  division  into  fixed  social  classes, 
one  superior,  the  other  inferior,  has  given  away.  These  are  con- 
ditions making  for  fluidity,  transfer  and  circulation. 

Each  one  of  these  changes  means  something  typically  im- 
portant for  education.  With  the  substitution  of  interdependence 
for  independence  goes  the  idealization  of  work,  of  labor.  The 
merely  leisure  life  appears  to  our  present  conscience  to  be  a  vain, 
an  idlejife.  To  render  service  to  others  is  not  now  the  badge  of 
servility,  but  the  insignia  of  moral  nobility.  The  dependence  of 
modern  methods  of  production  and  distribution  upon  applied 


CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION  15 

science  renders  impossible  the  fixed  separation  of  theory  and  prac- 
tice with  exaltation  of  the  former  and  contempt  for  the  latter, 
inevitable  enough  where  industry  meant  blind  routine  and  com- 
merce blind  adventure.  Industry  has  henceforth  inherent  backing 
in  intelligence,  inherent  outlook  upon  the  things  of  the  spirit.  It 
is  elevated  to  the  place  of  reason,  of  truth;  and  speculative  of 
theoretic  intelligence  is  found  to  be  crippled  and  halting  until  se- 
curing its  outlet  and  test  in  the  fuller  reality  of  action. 

The  third  change  noted,  the  extension  of  suffrage  and  of 
public  power  to  the  masses,  is  equally  fraught  with  educational 
import.  When  laboring  people  are  excludeci  from  political  activi- 
ties, it  is  possible  to  maintain  a  double  system  of  education,  one 
sort  for  cultured  leisure  called  liberal,  the  other  sort  for  work, 
called  professional,  mechanical,  utilitarian.  But  now  that  our 
final  political  destinies  have  been  put  in  charge  of  those  who 
labor,  it  is  foolish  to  imagine  either  a  conserved  or  a  progressing 
society  without  due  and  large  education  which  should  give  the 
maximum  of  insight  and  appreciation.  To  borrow  a  phrase  from 
English  political  history:  "We  must  educate  our  masters/'  and 
unless  we  wish  to  be  badly  mastered  we  must  educate  them  well. 

Such  are  some  of  the  motives  which  are  back  of  the  per- 
sistent effort,  along  the  whole  line  of  educational  activity,  to  break 
down  inherited  traditions  as  to  what  constitutes  a  liberal  educa- 
tion, to  fill  the  gulf  between  vocation  and  culture.  Quite  apart 
from  the  truth  of  the  generalizations  in  which  I  have  indulged 
myself,  one  has  only  to  look  at  the  present  educational  situation 
from  the  kindergarten  to  the  university,  to  see  that  whatever  be 
the  theoretical  explanation,  the  most  interesting  and  vital  prob- 
lems in  educational  practice  to-day  are  such  as  concern  the  con- 
nection of  play  and  work  of  the  intellectual  and  informational 
and  the  dynamic  and  motor  factors;  of  instruction  from  books 
and  teachers  and  from  self-guided  productive  activities;  such  as 
concern  in  short  the  development  of  a  type  of  education  which 
shall  make  both  a  man  or  a  woman  and  a  worker. 

Our  higher  education  is  hastening  to  introduce  schools  of 
commerce  as  well  as  schools  of  technology ;  our  secondary  educa- 
tion is  transforming  itself  through  schools  or  courses  for  the  man- 
ual arts  and  for  commerce ;  the  effort  is  put  forth  not  merely  to 


1 6  CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION 

enrich  but  to  reconstruct  elementary  education  by  the  introduction 
of  constructive  and  productive  activities — and  these  not  as  frills 
but  as  fundamentals.  There  is  an  agitation  for  trade  schools,  or 
for  the  development  of  industry  in  education  till  it  becomes  a 
more  serious  factor  in  preparation  for  the  realities  of  economic 
life;  or  at  least  for  some  educational  method  which  shall  do  the 
work  of  the  dying  apprentice  system. 

I  have  spoken  of  industry  in  relation  to  our  traditional  ideas 
of  a  cultural  education.  It  would  not  be  seemly  to  speak  to  a  joint 
meeting  of  art  and  manual  training  teachers  without  also  a  few 
words  regarding  art  in  education.  Fortunately  for  me  those  few 
words  are  just  those  necessary  to  the  integrity  of  my 'argument. 
The  instinct  of  the  Greek  in  classifying  together  artist  and  artisan, 
was,  I  think,  correct  and  prophetic;  not  that  the  artist  is  to  be 
pushed  down  to  the  plane  assigned  by  the  Greek  to  the  craftsman, 
but  that  the  laborer  is  to  be  brought  up  to  the  level  assigned  by  us 
to  the  creative  artist.  For,  after  all,  is  there  any  way  in  which 
the  life  of  industry  can  avoid  the  ethical  taint  of  servility  save 
through  informing  itself  with  the  spirit  of  art?  On  the  educa- 
tional, as  on  the  social  side,  this  is  perhaps  our  supreme,  our  test 
question. 

Recent  educational  theory  has  tended  increasingly  to  centralize 
itself  about  the  idea  of  the  fundamental  importance  of  the  pro- 
longation of  infancy ;  the  period  of  relief,  of  leisure,  from  th& 
stresses  and  strains  of  independent  economic  activity.  Childhood 
is,  we  have  learned  to  say,  preeminently  the  play  time ;  education, 
play  and  freedom  from  direct  economic  pursuits  are  all  syn- 
onymous terms.  There  is,  then,  something  almost  ludicrous, 
.something  at  least  paradoxical,  in  our  situation.  We  proclaim  the 
growing  importance  of  industry  as  an  educational  factor  at  the 
very  time  that  we  have  discovered  that  play  is  the  key  to  educa- 
tion. We  are  fighting,  on  one  hand,  child  labor  in  the  factory, 
while 'we  are  urging  child  industry  in  the  school. 

In  truth  this  situation  would  present  an  insoluble  contradiction 
were  it  not  for  the  intervention  of  art.  Art  is  always  the  mean 
term,  the  connecting  link,  of  play  and  work,  of  leisure  and  indus- 
try. Even  Aristotle  admitted  that  it  was  not  so  much  what  was 
done  as  it  was  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  done  that  made  it  free  or 


CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION  17 

servile.  The  very  freedom  of  childhood  from  direct  economic 
responsibility  gives  all  the  more  opportunity  for  reproduction  and 
mastery  of  the  typical  industries  which  maintain  and  forward  social 
life,  free  from  mercenary  and  competitive  associations  and  satur- 
ated with  their  human  and  their  scientific  significance.  To  accom- 
plish this  is  to  raise  the  industrial  factor  in  education  to  the  artis- 
tic, and  thereby  to  cover  the  distance  between  work  and  culture. 

Play  is  not  amusement ;  the  play  of  childhood  is  not  recreation. 
Amusement  and  recreation  are  ideas  which  require  a  background 
of  monotony,  of  enforced  toil,  to  give  them  meaning.  Play  as 
work,  as  freely  productive  activity,  industry  as  leisure,  that  is,  as 
occupation  which  fills  the  imagination  and  the  emotions  as  well  as 
the  hands,  is  the  essence  of  art.  Art  is  not  an  outer  product  nor 
an  outer  behavior.  It  is  an  attitude  of  spirit,  a  state  of  mind — 
one  which  demands  for  its  own  satisfaction  and  fulfilling  a  shap- 
ing of  matter  to  new  and  more  significant  form.  To  feel  the 
meaning  of  what  one  is  doing  and  to  rejoice  in  that  meaning,  to 
unite  in  one  concurrent  fact  the  unfolding  of  the  inner  emotional 
life  and  the  ordered  development  of  material  external  conditions — 
that  is  art.  The  external  signs  of  its  presence — rhythm,  symme- 
try, arrangement  of  values,  what  you  please— these  things  are 
signs  of  art  in  which  they  exhibit  the  union  of  joyful  thought  and 
control  of  nature.  Otherwise  they  are  dead  and  mechanical 

Art,  in  a  word,  is  industry  unusually  conscious  of  its  own 
meaning — -adequately  conscious,  emotionally  and  intellectually. 
In  the  impact  of  economic  life  under  present  conditions,  there  is 
slender  opportunity  for  such  consciousness — hence  our  art  itself 
is  corrupt  with  the  separation  of  beauty  from  use,  of  leisure  from 
work.  But  the  period  of  education  is  just  the  period  in  which 
the  play  of  productive  and  manipulating  activities  may  become 
surcharged  in  their  performance  with  such  fulness  o£  social  and 
scientific  meaning  that  the  association,  once  established,  shall 
never  be  lost.  There  is  always  danger  that  an  educational  prepar- 
ation for  industry  shall  become  over-technical  and  utilitarian, 
carrying  back  into  the  school  the  most  undesirable  features  of 
the  present  industrial  regime.  Our  protection  lies  in  making  the 
industrial  activities  of  the  school  artistic.  Or  there  is  danger  that 
the  harshly  utilitarian  will  be  escaped  only  at  the  risk  of  an 


l8  CULTURE  AND  INDUSTRY  IN  EDUCATION 

obviously  amateurish  fooling  with  occupations — a  reduction  of 
the  play  idea  to  make-believe  and  idle  pretense.  The  remedy  once 
more  is  to  make  the  play  of  childhood  productive,  efficient  of  re- 
sults ;  to  make  it  art.  This  alone  refines  and  idealizes  the  harsher 
and  duller  features  of  labor  while  it  directs  and  articulates  the 
play  spirit,  which  pursued  apart  from  productive  control  of  phys- 
ical materials,  becomes  weak  and  sentimental.  Art  is  like  industry 
in  that  it  must  achieve  visible  and  tangible  embodiment  minister- 
ing to  human  use — a  result  so  visible  and  tangible  as  to  involve 
judgment  by  palpable  standards,  while  it  so  ministers  to  the 
human  spirit  as  to  carry  its  own  standard  with  it  in  the  joy  that  it 
expresses  and  feeds.  Like  industry,  it  needs  definite  tools,  ac- 
curate processes,  an  exact  technique  of  control  and  aim.  But  in 
elevating  the  materials,  the  technique,  the  outward  means  and 
ends,  into  the  region  of  personal  imagination,  it  gives  an  educa- 
tion which  educates  not  alone  to  specific  utilities  and  commodities, 
but  to  the  widest  of  all  uses ;  to  the  just  apprehension  of  values 
wherever  and  whenever  presented.  So  I  end  as  I  began.  Let  us 
cease  asking  ourselves  what  the  school  can  do  for  industry,  and 
/let  us  begin  asking  ourselves  what  industry,  conceived  in  the 
spirit  of  art,  may  do  for  the  school. 


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